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Xenolinguistics
"I believe the science, or perhaps even art, of linguistics is more relevant in this age of space travel and exploration than in any age before. Indeed, this may surprise many, for the 'physical sciences' of the likes of chemistry, physics and so on have long outshone the humanities. Now, however, all galactic politics relies on us, and on our translations. There is simply no other way to conduct inter-species politics." -Fifth of Wordseekers, on the 10th anniversary of Bwojom first contact with the Jre, 86 BI Xenolinguistics is the scientific field studying various languages and similar communication forms across species, and attempting to find ways to translate them into eachother. Xenolinguists have become an extremely valuable resource to the nations of Known Space. Their discoveries have already led to many world-shaking innovations, such as Instant Translation Technology (ITT), and they, alongside xenopsychologists and xenoanthropologists, are essential in establising first contact with any newly discovered species. Overview Xenolinguists differentiate two main forms of communication most known species use: Primary, or Advanced Communication is what can be considered 'true' language. It is the form of communication used to convey complex ideas and information. Advanced Communication in almost every species is a learned skill, and usually many different variants, or 'languages', exist even within one species. Advanced Communication itself is subdivided into 4 'normal' groups (Auditive, Visual, Sensual, Olfactory and Pulsating) and 1 'special' group (Connecting) based on what medium the form uses to convey its information. Secondary, or Primal Communication, is simultaneously a 'simpeler' form of communication and a much more complex one. Primal Communication, in most species, primarily conveys simple emotions and some, simple ideas (most commonly things such as 'danger!' or 'I am in need of help!'). In most species, Primal Communication is largely instinctual, with only a few 'words' being learned and therefore based on culture. Though it is worth mentioning many cultures across species see certain Primal 'words' as more or less desirable to show, and therefore learn to exhibit said 'words' in specific situations. Whilst any, neurotypical, member of a species should be able to read their own species Primal Communication easily, it is often one of the toughest challenges to tackle for xenolinguists or the members of other species. Most species have a highly complex spectrum of emotion, and an equally exhaustive way of showing said emotions. Whilst usually there will be some documentation on the way a species uses their Primal Communication, they rarely realise the full extend of this 'language' and only have research on the most obvious elements on it. They often don't really notice the most subtle bits of their communication, an just consider these universal. Other species may have to study for years, if not decades, to fully grasp an other species' Primal Communication- if they have the brain functions to be able to understand it correctly to begin with. Primal Communication largely uses the same mediums as Advanced Communication, though they rarely fully overlap. Many species use many mediums of Primal Communication at once, however, only adding to the difficulty of decoding it. Most species have access to an Advanced form of communication, and a fully realised Primal Communication. There do exist many exceptions, however. Many species posses a so-called 'Partially Realised Primal Communication', as opposed to the Fully Realised version most other species use. These 'Partially Realised' races cannot convey certain ideas most species can through their Primal Communication and must adapt linguistically to this limitation. Most often, they can either not convey specific tones in their 'speach' (or equivalent), and can only give the basic emotion of their words. This usually ends up in it being impossible for them to ask questions or convey sarcasm (or equivalents) without resorting to grammatical constructions. An other common limitation is that many species cannot emphasise specific words in a sentence. This is usually resorted by using either inflections or some form of adjective, though it is also somewhat common to use word order to convey emphasise. There also exist species with no Primal Communication at all, though they are rare. Instead they must rely on solely on language and grammar, and thusly tend to create incredibly complex grammar to make up for this inability. Auditive Communication Auditive species use sound-based languages to convey ideas. Species who use Auditive Communication as their Advanced form tend to have rather similar ways of going about language. They near-universally differentiate nouns, verbs and adjectives, have somewhat similar ways of treating grammar. In addition, most Auditive species use something called a 'sound inventory', where they only use a limited amount of the usually great amount of sounds they can produce. Of course, species who can only produce a limited amount of sounds to begin with do not do this. Most Auditive species eventually develop scripts where the sounds they produce are written down as symbols; be it in the form of alphabets, where all sounds can get their own symbol, syllabaries, where certain syllable structures get a symbol, abjads, where only 'consonants' or their equivalents get a sign, or punjads, where 'consonant' symbols are modified to show the 'vowel' following it. Some cultures even develop 'featural' writing systems, where every sign is a 'instruction' for how to pronounce the sound. Usually one of these 'sound-based' writing systems become the dominant system of a species (or rather, one of, as most species do posses multiple important systems). There do exist languages which, for one reason or another, cannot use such systems, and instead opt for logographical systems where every symbol signifies a specific word or idea on itself. Whilst most Auditive cultures begin writing with a pictographic writing system, there exist no known spacefaring cultures which still cling on to such 'primitive' systems in their eyes. When it comes to communicative technology, most Auditive species will either have to wait until the invention of proper telephone lines, or develop a simpeler form of communication to communicate through telegraph lines. Almost all species invent such a 'morse code' (as it is known to human cultures), however. That said, the invention of the telephone or the radio is always a gigantic discovery for these species. The prevalence of music is also a major 'side-effect' of Auditive communication. Whilst non-Auditive species tend to have some equivalent of music still, it is only in Auditive species, whose brains are trained to hear and interpreate complex rythms within sounds already, that music becomes such a culturally important phenomenon. Auditive individuals will often listen to music in their digital devices as background noice (many Auditives dislike silence to some extend) whilst doing other tasks, or even listen to it as a past time in and of itself. Auditive cultures tend to develop a great many musical instruments to work with, often with each being assigned various 'tones' or 'emotions' of some sort. In addition, poetry is also a fairly unique Auditive concept. Other species will, of course, also use their languages for the sake of art, but only Auditive species do so by maling use of sound-based art, and grammatical functions as such. Despite their relative simililarity in the way they approach language, it can often be hard for an Auditive individual to learn the language of an other Auditive species. This is because most Auditives use radically different sounds to communicate, often to the point that they sound like simple animals to eachother. It is possible, however; though it will usually take many years of study. In addition, it is generally impossible for individuals to actually speak the languages of other species without technological aid, as their vocal chords usually make this impossible. This has not stopped many xenolinguists from creating 'appropiations' of alien languages using the sounds their own species can produce which sound most similar to those the language actually uses. This is a common tactic even for teaching future xenolinguists an alien language, in fact. There also exist, of course, many species who use Auditive communication as their primary form of Primal Communication. In species that also use Auditive communication as their Advanced form, this usually comes in the shape of highly complex variations of tone and emphasis within a sentence. Some species, such as the Pakoph can even speak with multiple tones in their voice at once. Other species simply insert various 'emotional sounds' in between their words, however. In species that primarily communicate through some other means than Auditive, but do use Auditive as their Primal form, this usually takes the shape of some kind of set of sounds (or even a 'song' of sorts) which communicates emotion and similar concepts. Interestingly, most species who communicate emotion in such a way share the appreciation for music most Auditive species have, though they do often have a harder time learning Auditive languages. Visual Visual species use visual-based languages to convey ideas. They are often further differentiated into so-called 'Gestural' species (species who use various gestures and movements to convey ideas) and 'Rithmatic' species (species who use visual 'rhythms', usually in the form of colour changes or biolumensicent light flashes similar to morse code to convey ideas). Visual languages often don't make as strong seperations between various types of words (nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc) like Auditive languages, often using the various 'words' through eachother and at most maybe including some kind of gesture or colour-combination to indicate wether they're talking about the action or the actor. Gestural languages usually don't have clearly defined sets of 'movements' they use, instead using almost random and an incredinly large amount of moves. Rhithmatic species tend to use every colour, or light lenght, or whatever have you that they can, and often use it in a similar way to how Auditive species use sounds. Visual species have something of a tendency to develop logographic writing systems, as they tend to already practically 'speak' in logographs regardless. There are major differences here between Gestural and Visual species however. Gestural species are among the only species in Known Space who still use pictographic systems at advanced technological levels, litterally drawing out the moves and gestures they make to draw out a word. Though they usually draw heavily simplified representations, for the sake of ease of use. In Visual species it often depands on what medium exactly is used to communicate. Species who use colour changes to communicate will often write using dies, simply making colourful dots to make it appear as if the writing is 'talking' to them. In addition, some colour-base languages employ an almost alphabet-like system instead, where every symbol represents a specific colour. This usually occurs if the 'speakers' of said language didn't have the resources to write using dies when their writing system was first adopted. Species who use flashes of light will often write in a similar manner to how morse-code on Earth is written down; using symbols of varying lenght to show how long the actual flash is. The rare species who both can see infrared (and with it, warmth) and communicate using warmth patterns as such will sometimes employ a system similar to the dye-based scripts of many colour-using species: 'drawing' out words using various colours representing various levels of warmth. Though, many also just use more alphabetical systems where every symbol simply represents a level of warmth.Species that communicate combining two visual methods will often combine the writing tactics of both methods. For an example, a species who communicates via a combination of moving certain organs, whilst also flashing lights of some fashion will usually draw the pictograph of the movement with a symbol represanting wether or not a light is present, and is so how long said light is, under it. Interestingly, Visual species will often tend to develop writing much earlier than most other species, as they are already used to the idea of visual cues encoding information. When it comes to communicative technology, Visual species are in an interesting situation. They will usually have some trouble inventing telegaph-equivalents, but tend to gravitate using light flashes instead of sequences of long and short sounds in this case (especially if they already use light flashes to communicate). Radio and telephone equivalents don't have much use for them, however. As a result, they often tend to develop mechanisms where radio signals simply make a light flash at certain lenghts sooner than developing an actual way to record sound. In addition, they often develop television screens and even coloured screens significantly earlier than most other species, which will usually be used extensively by military and government operations but will initially not be used much by the public. After television screens liek this are invented, a way to simply send and receive written text is usually the next invention and the closest equivalent to a 'telephone'. Personal camera's and ways to cheaply send visual information are, as a result, also much sooner invented than in other species. All of this can also happen without sound recording being discovered, with sound recording usually being seen as a novelty initially, similar to how most Auditive species see colour television. When it comes to translation technology or even military HUDs, Visual species will often have to get used to either a lot of writing being in their way, or for some kind of small 'figure' constantly making movements in a corner of the screen to convey translations and commands. This is rarely seen as an issue by them, however, as Visual species are usually more adept in filtering out visual information anyways. Similarly to how poetry and music is often extremely significant to Auditive species, Visual species care greatly for paintings, statues or even moving machines. Gestural species will often develop highly complicated 'dance' routines (for lack of a better word) which can be equated to singing, whereas Rhitmatics tend to care more for artistic installations creatively using shape and colour. A concept which can be equated to the magicians of many species is also common in many Visual species, where one or multiple individuals simply seek to deceive or impress using all kinds of visual tricks including fireworks, colourful smoke and spotlights. Fireworks, too, are usually invented earlier in visual species, indirectly leading to them also often inventing guns, cannons and rocketry earlier than non-Visual species. Visual species often have an extremely easy time learning other scripts, and even the languages of other Visual species (assuming they can see the exact colours, heat frequences, etc... an other species uses to communicate), as their brains are already highly trained in understanding visual ques. As every sapient with the capability to become a technologically advanced species is already great at understanding visual ques and making gestalts, it is also often relatively easy for non-Visual species to learn Visual languages, sometimes even compared to language of their own type. Because of this, Visual languages are often among the more popular to learn among xenolinguistic students, even if it is usually impossible for any one who lacks the nescesary organs to speak it. There are also many species who use Visual communication as their form of Primal Communication. This is usually done by colour change, though species making gestures of some sort to communicate emotion are also not unheard of. These species tend to greatly associate certain colours, moves, gestures and so forth with certain emotions or asic ideas, leading to them often developing highly complex social norms. For an example, species who use colour to communicate emotion will only have very strict and complex rules for fashion, in particular what colour of clothes or what colour combinations to wear in various situations. Other species not understandign these types of rules have led to many diplomatic incidents, where the very attire of a diplomat or the way they moved was insulting to the diplomats of the species in question, in the past. Body language is also an incredibly common way to encode emotion, though one which usually doesn't come with as strong social implications as other forms of Primal Visual communication. Some species have even evolved dedicated organs or muscles to communicate emotion in this manner (humans with their facial expressions, for one example). Finally, it may be worthwhile to point out that there are no known Gestural species who do not have any form of Primal communication, as the way they make their gestures almost always encodes emotion. Sensual Communication